
LOCK STATISTICS

- WHAT

As the name suggests, it provides statistics on locks.

- WHY

Because things like lock contention can severely impact performance.

- HOW

Lockdep already has hooks in the lock functions and maps lock instances to
lock classes. We build on that. The graph below shows the relation between
the lock functions and the various hooks therein.

        __acquire
            |
           lock _____
            |        \
            |    __contended
            |         |
            |       <wait>
            | _______/
            |/
            |
       __acquired
            |
            .
          <hold>
            .
            |
       __release
            |
         unlock

lock, unlock	- the regular lock functions
__*		- the hooks
<> 		- states

With these hooks we provide the following statistics:

 con-bounces       - number of lock contention that involved x-cpu data
 contentions       - number of lock acquisitions that had to wait
 wait time min     - shortest (non-0) time we ever had to wait for a lock
           max     - longest time we ever had to wait for a lock
           total   - total time we spend waiting on this lock
 acq-bounces       - number of lock acquisitions that involved x-cpu data
 acquisitions      - number of times we took the lock
 hold time min     - shortest (non-0) time we ever held the lock
           max     - longest time we ever held the lock
           total   - total time this lock was held

From these number various other statistics can be derived, such as:

 hold time average = hold time total / acquisitions

These numbers are gathered per lock class, per read/write state (when
applicable).

It also tracks 4 contention points per class. A contention point is a call site
that had to wait on lock acquisition.

 - CONFIGURATION

Lock statistics are enabled via CONFIG_LOCK_STATS.

 - USAGE

Enable collection of statistics:

# echo 1 >/proc/sys/kernel/lock_stat

Disable collection of statistics:

# echo 0 >/proc/sys/kernel/lock_stat

Look at the current lock statistics:

( line numbers not part of actual output, done for clarity in the explanation
  below )

# less /proc/lock_stat

01 lock_stat version 0.3
02 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
03                               class name    con-bounces    contentions   waittime-min   waittime-max waittime-total    acq-bounces   acquisitions   holdtime-min   holdtime-max holdtime-total
04 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
05
06                          &mm->mmap_sem-W:           233            538 18446744073708       22924.27      607243.51           1342          45806           1.71        8595.89     1180582.34
07                          &mm->mmap_sem-R:           205            587 18446744073708       28403.36      731975.00           1940         412426           0.58      187825.45     6307502.88
08                          ---------------
09                            &mm->mmap_sem            487          [<ffffffff8053491f>] do_page_fault+0x466/0x928
10                            &mm->mmap_sem            179          [<ffffffff802a6200>] sys_mprotect+0xcd/0x21d
11                            &mm->mmap_sem            279          [<ffffffff80210a57>] sys_mmap+0x75/0xce
12                            &mm->mmap_sem             76          [<ffffffff802a490b>] sys_munmap+0x32/0x59
13                          ---------------
14                            &mm->mmap_sem            270          [<ffffffff80210a57>] sys_mmap+0x75/0xce
15                            &mm->mmap_sem            431          [<ffffffff8053491f>] do_page_fault+0x466/0x928
16                            &mm->mmap_sem            138          [<ffffffff802a490b>] sys_munmap+0x32/0x59
17                            &mm->mmap_sem            145          [<ffffffff802a6200>] sys_mprotect+0xcd/0x21d
18
19 ...............................................................................................................................................................................................
20
21                              dcache_lock:           621            623           0.52         118.26        1053.02           6745          91930           0.29         316.29      118423.41
22                              -----------
23                              dcache_lock            179          [<ffffffff80378274>] _atomic_dec_and_lock+0x34/0x54
24                              dcache_lock            113          [<ffffffff802cc17b>] d_alloc+0x19a/0x1eb
25                              dcache_lock             99          [<ffffffff802ca0dc>] d_rehash+0x1b/0x44
26                              dcache_lock            104          [<ffffffff802cbca0>] d_instantiate+0x36/0x8a
27                              -----------
28                              dcache_lock            192          [<ffffffff80378274>] _atomic_dec_and_lock+0x34/0x54
29                              dcache_lock             98          [<ffffffff802ca0dc>] d_rehash+0x1b/0x44
30                              dcache_lock             72          [<ffffffff802cc17b>] d_alloc+0x19a/0x1eb
31                              dcache_lock            112          [<ffffffff802cbca0>] d_instantiate+0x36/0x8a

This excerpt shows the first two lock class statistics. Line 01 shows the
output version - each time the format changes this will be updated. Line 02-04
show the header with column descriptions. Lines 05-18 and 20-31 show the actual
statistics. These statistics come in two parts; the actual stats separated by a
short separator (line 08, 13) from the contention points.

The first lock (05-18) is a read/write lock, and shows two lines above the
short separator. The contention points don't match the column descriptors,
they have two: contentions and [<IP>] symbol. The second set of contention
points are the points we're contending with.

The integer part of the time values is in us.

View the top contending locks:

# grep : /proc/lock_stat | head
              &inode->i_data.tree_lock-W:            15          21657           0.18     1093295.30 11547131054.85             58          10415           0.16          87.51        6387.60
              &inode->i_data.tree_lock-R:             0              0           0.00           0.00           0.00          23302         231198           0.25           8.45       98023.38
                             dcache_lock:          1037           1161           0.38          45.32         774.51           6611         243371           0.15         306.48       77387.24
                         &inode->i_mutex:           161            286 18446744073709       62882.54     1244614.55           3653          20598 18446744073709       62318.60     1693822.74
                         &zone->lru_lock:            94             94           0.53           7.33          92.10           4366          32690           0.29          59.81       16350.06
              &inode->i_data.i_mmap_mutex:            79             79           0.40           3.77          53.03          11779          87755           0.28         116.93       29898.44
                        &q->__queue_lock:            48             50           0.52          31.62          86.31            774          13131           0.17         113.08       12277.52
                        &rq->rq_lock_key:            43             47           0.74          68.50         170.63           3706          33929           0.22         107.99       17460.62
                      &rq->rq_lock_key#2:            39             46           0.75           6.68          49.03           2979          32292           0.17         125.17       17137.63
                         tasklist_lock-W:            15             15           1.45          10.87          32.70           1201           7390           0.58          62.55       13648.47

Clear the statistics:

# echo 0 > /proc/lock_stat